The Fall
by Raidho
Summary: Ashraf's captain gets a ship again, but it's as part of the ill-fated Pact expedition. He and Captain Artan struggle to help a surviving sylvari crew mate keep it together while making their way out of the jungle.
1. The Fall, 1

He heard the door open downstairs, the soft tones of his mother's voice and a deeper one from the steps, but Ashraf didn't go to the window to look, continued buffing at the leather laid out across his lap. _Too long_ , but keeping the routine helped him, even when being on a ship again seemed forever away.

The knock at his own door startled him, and he put the leather aside, reached for his sword before standing, but didn't clear it from the sheath just yet. He couldn't imagine a visitor who would've talked politely with his mother rather than causing a commotion–but those kinds knew better than to come to him–but here was one, apparently, unless they'd quietly done her in. If so…. Ashraf took a deep breath, and steeled himself for the worst when he opened the door.

"Took you long enough." Treias' smile was still infectious, the fine bark around his eyes creasing up with it. Ashraf put the sword down and took Treias' hand when offered. When the sylvari pulled him into a hug Ashraf wasn't _too_ surprised _,_ went with it.

"What are you doing here?" Ashraf asked before they'd even parted.

The corner of Treias' mouth twitched, but the smile didn't fail as he straightened up, arm's length away now. "Right to business? I can't just be a friend calling on a friend?"

"If that was all, you would've called before now. Or somewhere other than _my mother's house_."

"Well _you're_ the one living here. It's hardly my fault this is where I found you." He paused for just a second, _looked_ at Ashraf in a way that made him uncomfortable, like he was searching for something in Ashraf's expression. "Artan sent me to ask you to come back."

"She got a ship?" Treias nodded, and Ashraf seemed dumbfounded for a moment. "But the Arch is still…."

"She's gone legit. Pact business now." Treias straightened the lapels of his coat at that, _legit_. "They were looking for people with experience with boarding action for a new venture–not sure what they'll run into. Someone _may_ have let slip our little adventure with some of their derelicts off the coast of Orr, and someone else _may_ have offered pardons in exchange for service. But it's still _paying_ work, of course."

"Legit work," Ashraf deadpanned. "Artan. Are you sure we're thinking of the same person?"

"They gave her an airship."

"Oh." Yes, Ashraf thought, that would about do it. The only thing Artan loved more than bright sunlight sparkling on open water was the feeling of wind rushing past her–he keenly remembered her envy, how _electric_ the air had been around her the first time they'd watched an Aetherblade ship pass overhead. "Not one of the…?" He held his hands up at chest height and splayed his fingers wide. Treias nodded. "Oh. _Oh_ , yes."

While he packed up what little he meant to take Ashraf wondered about what sending _Treias_ instead of coming herself meant–if Artan still wanted him at her right hand–but he shrugged it off. If he'd fallen out of favor that was fine, so long as he got to come back at all.

* * *

It wasn't the first time they'd been like this–Ashraf and Artan back to back on the deck, fending off deadly foes and taking the roll and buck of the deck with ease. But this _was_ the first time they'd done so against parts of their own crew, Ashraf's sword and Artan's daggers sticky with golden sap. Treias sat on the deck at their feet, a slick of sap over one eye he couldn't quite open any more, bent over his pistols and hastily reloading– _a matter of time_ , they both thought, but they didn't have time to voice it and wouldn't put a crew mate to the blade without _knowing_ it to be necessary. Why he resisted whatever had happened they weren't sure, but Ashraf had kept him close at hand while they fought their way to Artan. And now they were here, the ship listing but somehow still aloft.

An enormous tendril shot up off to the side, punched through another ship, and a gout of splinters and metal and flame shot out the other side. Ashraf and Artan couldn't spare the attention, but Treias looked up at the resounding crack, made a choking sound.

The ship heaved, and for a moment no one on deck could do anything but try to keep their footing. The helmsman swore so loud they heard it amidships, and while they got no dramatic burst of debris thorny tendrils began insinuating themselves into the weak points of the deck, threading around ankles and lashing out at crew when they came near.

With his pistols finally loaded Treias shot the nearest one, thorny flesh exploding under the bullet. Something tugged at him, and he looked down to find the thin tendrils rapidly snaking up along his legs. He couldn't stand, couldn't pull away since one of the crew had _shot him in the hip_ early on, and panicked. "Ashraf!" But he could feel them digging into the flesh of his legs under his trousers already, felt the niggling worry at his muscles and the sudden horror of knowing _something else_ was tapping into his nerves, a pressure and a song, red as blood and gold as sap, rising along the back of his neck. " _Ashraf!_ "

Ashraf left his sword in the flesh of a charr crew mate puppeted on vines and lunged down, grabbed Treias by the shoulders and tore him away from the vines. They were still there, still wriggling, _red_ and _gold_ and _red the human's blood, raise your gun–_ "It's still, it's still–" Treias heaved for breath, sobbing in his fear. " _Please_ –"

Ashraf threw him against the deck and Treias cried out against the pain in his hip, lost his grip on the pistol he'd been slowly raising. "No." Something was different about Ashraf, too, blue eyes glowing with guardian fire–but not quite, it was _different_ somehow–his hands alight with it as they fisted into Treias' collar. Not roiling like guardian fire but _light_ , as if he suddenly had starlight under his skin–the same, and _not_ the same at all. "Not this one." His voice seemed fuller, almost a _chorus_ under it, unseen and felt more than heard. "This one is _ours_."

Treias' world erupted into light and unfamiliar song and he cried out, clenched his good eye shut. It _burned_ , seared through his brain and down his spine and chased the pressure and the other song right out the way it came. Something lurched beneath him, voices–he was too dazed, too full of _light_ for any of this to make sense. But he knew that he was falling now, struggled to open his eye.

When he did he saw the faraway treetops rushing up to meet them and briefly wished he _hadn't_ woken. Treias clutched at the arm wrapped around him–still had one pistol but no way to holster it with the wind beating at him–and begged silently to the Mother Tree that the person holding him still be Ashraf. Then he thought better of that, and prayed to the Six. He hedged his bets with the Raven spirit, too, but no wings were forthcoming.

The trees drew ever closer and Treias tensed, braced himself on instinct, and the familiar shimmer of aegis passed before his eyes as they hit the canopy. They jerked suddenly, then kept falling. "Shit! Artan!"

They hit a broad limb, wood splintering under the aegis, and Ashraf lost his grip. Treias scrambled for some kind of hold but only fell further, slipping from the branch.

Ashraf rolled with the impact, had his feet immediately, and looked up, trying to find any hint of Artan. He'd still had a grip on her arm when he activated his aegis, but if she'd fallen any farther since then–he didn't want to think about it, and there was no sign of her anyway. Treias' fall he could trace still, and he started scrambling down.

He made it all the way down before he found Treias, sprawled unconscious in the dirt but breathing and as whole as he'd been when Ashraf lost his grip. For the moment Ashraf leaned back against a boulder caught in the roots of the massive tree, and caught his breath.

* * *

Ashraf spent an hour listening to distant explosions, the ground rumbling every time one of the massive vines moved, but through the dense foliage he saw nothing of the ongoing destruction of the fleet. The ship had listed far enough before breaking up that they seemed to be out of immediate danger from the huge vines and wandering mordrem, but lingering would only increase the chances of being found by something unpleasant. And him without his sword, now of all times–Artan had grabbed it for him when the deck broke apart, and he could only hope she still had it.

He looked from the trees back down to Treias, only now stirring. Whatever had happened to the rest of the sylvari crew had been sudden, while Treias was showing him the ship's cannons. They'd been touching close, maybe breaths apart, when one of Treias' gunners ripped a cannon out of its emplacement and turned it down the ship lengthwise.

Treias shot her knee out from under her with one of his pistols, but she didn't stop, just turned the cannon on them. Ashraf wasn't _quite_ fast enough to get them out of the way, let the shot take out the side of the ship rather than reflect it back at her and risk punching through to the machine room beneath them, and it glanced Treias' hip as Ashraf grabbed him and pulled him aside. Then other crew were on her, pulling the cannon from her hands.

It took a second, ears still ringing from the shot and trying to keep the burned, shrapnel-filled mess of Treias' hip together with what healing guardian fire allowed him before he realized what was _really_ going on.

He stopped mid-motion, staring in horror as Serin, one of their oldest crew and second gunner to Treias, hucked one of the gun charges into the melee. It was the sylvari, he realized, in the second of clarity in the melee before that charge exploded. He looked down at Treias, who lay still and as pale as he ever got, teeth set against the pain. "What's happening? How do we stop it?"

"There's a noise," Treias grit out. "Like treesong, but not–" He drew in a sharp breath between his teeth. "I'm trying not to focus on it. Don't ask me again."

A full third of the crew was sylvari, and Ashraf wasn't ready to accept the thought of losing them and more. If he still had _one_ that was right in the head, maybe there were others–maybe they could figure out how to stop it. He managed to get Treias' hip together enough to carry the sylvari on his back.

They'd ended up with Artan on the deck and no solution forthcoming. Now, in the eerie quiet of the jungle, punctuated only by those distant explosions, he watched Treias and wondered if the sylvari was going to wake up changed.

Treias pushed himself up, rolled onto his good hip and made a soft sound of pain as he landed. He looked bleary-eyed, confused for a moment, little bits of leaf litter clung to him. "Ashraf?"

"Yes." Ashraf held himself in a moment of grim tension, noted Treias still had one pistol.

"Oh." The sound came out half exhalation, half-sob. "Thank– _whatever._ " He swallowed heavily, grimaced. "Artan?"

Ashraf relaxed, kept his relief out of his voice somehow. "I need to look for her. But if I have to go all the way up, it might take a while."

"Please." Treias clutched his pistol even tighter, the grip audibly creaking. "Don't leave me here. It's still–" He bit off whatever else he meant to say, looked down at the ground.

Ashraf finally moved over to him, helped Treias get upright and against the boulder as well. The sylvari leaned into him, reluctant to let go. "You can't climb, Treias. Not like that. And if one of us stays we have twice the chance of finding her. Or anyone else."

While he spoke Treias stared at him intently, and finally said, "Your eyes."

"What?"

"They're still… nevermind." Treias found that if he thought about the fire that had overridden every sense on the ship, that horrible parody of treesong seemed more distant. He could tell a difference, too, even in just the short distance he'd been from Ashraf versus leaning shoulder-to-shoulder with him. His voice went quiet and dull and he shuddered at the thought, "I'll stay." Because Ashraf was right.

* * *

Treias spent a stretch of lonely, fearful hours with only the distant explosions and the niggling horror at the back of his mind, whispers and snatches of song. When the understory's dim twilight drew into a deeper dusk he heard leaves rustling, began laboriously inching his way around the boulder and between the roots for a better vantage to hide and shoot from. Every movement jostled his hip, and he bit through his lip to keep from crying out. _At least_ , he thought, _I didn't lose the leg_. He probably came close, and it was some degree of comfort to consider that against the pain.

He _did_ cry out when Bosun Espen came around the base of a tree, pushed up from the boulder to make himself more visible to the lanky norn. "Hey! Over here!" Espen paused, staring warily. "I haven't lost it yet!" _But I might_. Something inside him chilled at the unbidden thought.

Espen walked up to him, a familiar lopsided grin cross the norn's face. "But you could." His voice was all wrong, wispy one moment and normal the next as if he spoke on the inhale and the exhale. Close enough now Treias could see the dim green lines under Espen's too pale skin, fine vines where veins should be, squeezing muscles to make them move and puppeting Espen's body around. Treias glanced down, hoping for some sign he was wrong, but Espen's every step left a small, clinging bramble as the vines struggled to keep his body upright. "Let go, child." Espen extended a hand, vines more visible wrapped tight around his bones and barely contained by the skin, and under his voice Treias heard a faint crescendo in the alien music.

Treias screamed, full of terror and wordless refusal, and unloaded his gun into the norn's face. Espen's skull exploded under the hail of bullets, and the body stumbled back, thorny vines wriggling from the gaping holes Treias blew out. This was more horrible than anything he'd seen in Orr, more horrible than lost crew crawling back up over the side of the ship with their bloated, undead flesh sloughing off, and when he was out of bullets he struggled to keep his breath under control, spots dancing at the edge of his vision.

Espen's one remaining eye trained on him as the corpse puppet regained its balance and began advancing again.

"No." He barely heard it over his own breathing, soft and faintly accented. Espen's flesh melted off his bones, and the vines whirled about for purchase as they grasped onto them, looking for anything to wield against their intended victim. With the norn's bulk gone Treias saw Artan clearly through the standing bones, sitting stately in the arms of a flesh golem that carried her as daintily as if she were Queen Jennah herself. She closed the fingers of her outstretched hand into a fist, and the vines withered, the bones fell into a heap in the wet pile of meat beneath them. "That one is ours."

The relief of seeing her was such a shock Treias felt nauseous, and after another breath and the smell of Espen's dead flesh hit him his stomach made good on the threat. When he looked back up smaller minions were clearing away the remains, probably arranging them into suitable parts for making more minions, and Artan's golem crouched arm's length from him.

Artan pulled herself out of its grasp, limped up to him heedless of the blood. "Still with us?" He nodded, and she smiled softly, a much gentler look than he'd seen her give anyone on the ship. "Good. Where's my no good first mate?"

Treias swallowed thickly, thought he tasted sap. "Looking for you."

She nodded, sat down next to Treias. "We'll wait for him, then."

The falling dark and the rising song seemed so much less frightening with his captain at his side.

* * *

In full dark they dozed for a while, safe in the unblinking vigilance of Artan's minions. Artan woke Treias from a nightmarish vision, and he gasped for breath, unnerved by the utter darkness under the trees and the fleeting glimpses he got of Artan's face in the steady pulse of his own glow. "Still with us?"

"Yes," he said. "For now."

He caught a flash of her grim expression before she sat back. "Why do you think you're still with us, when the others changed so quickly?"

"I don't know." But he bit his tongue, gently, because he had an _idea_. "I _was_ going. On the deck. When Ashraf… did whatever he did. I was close to him when it started, and stayed with him the entire time. That's all I can think of."

"But he's been gone for hours, and you're still more or less yourself."

"It's getting harder," Treias admitted. "The pressure is coming back. Slower, now. Whatever is causing it… I think maybe it's not pushing as actively right now."

Artan made a soft sound of acknowledgment, and left it at that. But Treias couldn't, remembering the light that filled him. "His eyes were still glowing."

"Hm?"

"When I woke, after we fell. Ashraf's eyes were still glowing like they did on the ship, when he… did whatever he did." He paused, took another deep breath, because _this_ frightened him, too, how overwhelming the light had been. "That wasn't guardian fire."

"No." Artan drew the word out as if considering it carefully. "It wasn't. Well, it was, and it wasn't. Still glowing, you said?"

"Like they were lit from inside. Under his skin, too, when he was doing it–like he had a star inside him."

Artan was silent for a long moment, then when Treias was certain she meant not to respond she spoke, voice welling out of the dark and silence. "Do you know what a paragon is?"

"There's a human woman in Lion's Arch they say might be a paragon. The one with the djinn. But I don't know what it means." He shook his head, even if she couldn't see it in the dark.

"That's for the best, probably. There shouldn't _be_ any more paragons." Then as if she sensed his confusion, "That's a long story that I know too much about. I was almost a priestess of Grenth, you know, before I decided swashing buckles was more interesting. Anyway, you've noticed how the crew hops to when he tells them to do something? That you can hear his voice across the ship clear as bells?"

"Yes." Treias had never wondered much at it, chocking it up to a combination of subtle use of guardian magic and respect earned from the crew.

"And that if you hear him humming under his breath your hands are steadier? Or that the unnatural chill of the Orrian air slides off you, or the wind in the sails seems sweeter?"

Suddenly Treias was thankful for the darkness to hide the rush of sap to his face–he'd always attributed those things to something else, a secret he was sure he'd managed to keep from the rest of the crew. He gave a quieter, "Yes."

"I noticed those things, too, when he came aboard the first time." Artan shifted next to him, and her voice grew softer. "We used to joke that even though the Gods have turned away, when Ashraf was born they must've looked over their shoulders for a moment. Whatever it is that makes a paragon a paragon, he has more of that in him than anyone I've met."

"So what he did on the ship…."

"It's _older_ than guardian fire. It's what guardian fire _used_ to be. But he used it like it was guardian fire, still." He could almost _hear_ her shrug in the darkness. "The important part is that we know we have something that can help you keep it together."

* * *

Near dawn the jungle sounds started creeping back in, distant frog peeps first, and the song started in hard again. Treias threw his gun aside, then tore off the bandolier of ammo and threw it, too. Artan said something, but he couldn't hear her over the song and the whispers, red as blood and gold as sap, and he curled up on himself. Every time he thought he'd grasped the memory of the light it slipped through the cracks of his mind.

Artan pushed herself to her feet and limped away when Treias refused to respond; perhaps, she thought, this was his way of trying to save her from… whatever it was, whatever was happening. It seemed clear to her now that the dragon out here must hold some degree of sway over the sylvari, perhaps in the way Zhaitan commanded the fallen of the other races. _What_ and _how_ mattered less to her at the moment than how she could help her lead gunner fight it back.

"Artan!" She looked up and breathed a sigh of relief, and at the barest thought her flesh golem stood to give Ashraf an easier descent than falling from the lowest branches.

"Get down here, you layabout! Our flower is wilting!"

"I'm not–" Treias was suddenly _there_ , lashing out at her, and Artan deftly stepped back–or would've, save for the bum leg she'd very hastily healed up. She stumbled, and he would've had his hands on her if not for Ashraf dropping between them. He caught Treias' wrists and was _alight_ again, a beacon in the weak morning light. Treias collapsed with a weak, relieved sound, and Ashraf caught him.

After a long moment of quiet Ashraf said, "Well, that was convenient timing." He easily hoisted Treias up into his arms, the sylvari still dazed senseless. "Has he been doing that long?"

"No, he was fine all night."

"All night?" Ashraf looked up at her, and she nodded.

"I got here around dusk. Something was attacking him." She left out _what_ –a small mercy she could give her first mate, not knowing what fate had befallen most of the crew she'd found on her way here. "Do you need to rest or can we move on? I don't want to spend any more time in this gods forsaken jungle than we have to."

"Shouldn't we look for others?"

"If they're between us and the way out of here, we'll help them. Otherwise, no. Not after what I saw on my way down." And Ashraf didn't question her–not because she was his captain, but because he knew the finality in her tone and the look in her eyes meant she didn't expect survivors.

"We move, then. I'll be fine for a few hours," he said.

"Good." She gestured, and the flesh golem crouched, held out its arms for her to climb up again. "Did a bad job putting my leg back together after a run in with some brambles, we'll move faster this way. Oh, almost forgot." She reached up around the golem's shoulder and tugged his sword out of its flesh with an awful squelching sound, then offered it down to him. Ashraf put Treias down just long enough to take his sword and re-sheathe it. A couple of Artan's minions scampered off to look for Treias' pistol and ammunition as well.

As they walked Artan sent her smaller minions ahead, scouting through the jungle, and what they lacked in stealth with the huge flesh golem tromping through the undergrowth they made up for by keeping their distance from anything that seemed like a threat. She spent the first half of the day finishing up healing her leg, and eventually stopped the golem to test it. Stiff, but serviceable.

Treias had woken hours ago but putting weight on the shattered mess of his hip was out of the question, and he traded off being carried by Ashraf for the golem. Very much a trade _down_ , in Treias' opinion, but they were all safer if Ashraf could easily draw his sword.

Just before dusk the minions found water, a cool, fast runnel winding between the roots of the massive trees. They decided to stop for the night, settled down between buttress roots. Despite an irrational fear of even _touching_ the plant life here Treias had the golem carry him over to the brook and let him down to shape something out of broad leaves for carrying water.

When he returned Artan stood out between the trees, head back and staring up. Treias followed the line of her gaze and found a pair of small minions scrambling up a long, skinny trunk to what looked like a bunch of rather small bananas. He laughed, the absurdity and the _luck_ of finding those overwhelming him for a moment.

The golem trundled over to the grand roots of the tree they'd chosen for shelter and let him down. Since Ashraf was already asleep in the crux of the roots Treias put his crude canteen aside, shimmied as close as he dared to the guardian. Having whatever kept pushing the song back close at hand was the greatest comfort he could find out here.

Artan joined him after a few minutes, sat shoulder-to-shoulder with him while pulling bananas from the bunch the minions had managed to get down. She offered him one, and he ate it ravenously, wondering at the unfamiliar taste. He took a second, and then stopped, realizing the peel was red and the flesh a creamy yellow leaning gold. "Are you sure these are safe?" was probably a dumb question after he'd already scarfed one down. Treias could imagine all too well those horrible vines again, this time welling up from his stomach, and there'd be nothing anyone could do for him then.

"No, but I'd rather risk it than starve." She took a big bite out of one, and somehow that put Treias at ease. He ate more cautiously, though.

They didn't speak again until they had their hunger under control, and Artan made another trip to fetch water. By the time she returned he'd _mostly_ talked himself out of his fear after eating– _mostly_ –and distracted himself watching Ashraf sleep in the last hint of dim, fading light.

He'd barely been on ship two months the first time, made the awful mistake of mentioning to another gunner he'd _thought_ a good friend just what he thought about the first mate. Within the week he'd found himself near blackout drunk after a _very_ good run and distinctly remembered only two moments of the whole night. First, his supposed friend _loudly_ spilling every little thing Treias had shared with him, raucous laughter and the crew jeering and pushing him at Ashraf. Second, the panic of waking in the dark in a bed–he had a hammock in the hold, not a private berth–and turning to find moonlight on richly tanned skin and dark hair next to him. For a long moment he sat in silent horror considering what must have happened. _Not yet_ , he'd thought, _not like this._

Eventually Ashraf had stirred, rolled over and looked up at him. "You alright?" he slurred.

"What?"

"You're shaking."

He was, but found he couldn't stop it. "Did we…?"

"No." The finality in Ashraf's voice left no room for question, and he relaxed. Then he wondered, _why not_? and it started again, though less violently. "You were too drunk, but some of the crew wouldn't let it go. Easiest way to shut them up. Didn't want someone else to offer themselves as a 'consolation prize' or something while you were too drunk to know what you're doing."

"Thank you." It sounded strangely hollow, and he wasn't entirely sure what he was thanking Ashraf for, but the human rolled back over and went to sleep. Treias had too, eventually.

Morning had been a different story, when Treias was sober and calm enough to talk about what _hadn't_ happened. Then he'd corrected that, and spent the time since and in between their infrequent tumbles first convincing himself he _wasn't_ falling, then concealing it.

"Hey," startled him back to the present, as Artan settled back down. He quickly looked away from Ashraf, hoping he hadn't been caught, saw a little grin spread across Artan's face out of the corner of his eye.

"What?" He turned to face her in the fading light, tone defiant.

"There's no one else around to see, and I already knew." Treias scowled at her, and Artan's grin only grew. "He doesn't, though."

"It's going to stay that way." If he'd been able to get up and walk around on his own he would've found somewhere else to sit, but at the moment Treias was at her mercy. And he supposed there were _worse_ people who could know.

"Of course." Her tone was light, sarcastic. "Because how do you tell someone who insists he won't sleep with someone who gets too attached that it's too late?"

"You _don't_." He turned back to her and glared. "We already have enough going catastrophically wrong, don't start in on this."

"And if you die out here, and you've never told him?"

"Then I win."

"If _he_ dies getting you out of here safe?" He didn't answer right away, so she pressed, "What then?"

Throat suddenly dry, Treias had trouble speaking for a moment. "I won't let it happen."

"So we have _you_ dying to save _him_ then. Romantic. The deaths of the rest of the crew he can reason away, he can explain to himself. When we're done running for our lives and it really _sinks in_ just how many we lost, some day he'll recover from that." Artan didn't explain how she knew what she implied knowing, and Treias didn't want to ask. "But how does he explain _you_ , if it comes to that?"

Without an answer Treias just looked down at his hands, fingers threaded together in his lap. His own soft glow seemed dimmer than he remembered, and he hoped it was the growing darkness of the evening.

"He won't react the way you think he will," she continued. "He might not welcome it enthusiastically, but he won't push you away."

When he looked over he could just barely see Ashraf still, and he wanted the comfort of closeness more than anything–but he denied himself, because arm's length was better than having nothing at all. "No."

She didn't press it further, and Treias eventually fell asleep in the darkness, more miserable than he could remember being in a long time.

* * *

After spending more than a day pressing himself to keep on going, first in the fight and then looking for Artan and the long trek through the jungle, Ashraf didn't wake until nearly morning, starving and parched. In the soft pulse of Treias' glow he could make out Artan and the little pile of bananas a minion jealously guarded. Still clawing his way up from dreams, the bananas seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to have lying around, and he grabbed one.

He eventually realized Artan was awake now, and watching him quietly. Ashraf made a face and gestured at her with the banana, and she smiled.

"I've always enjoyed watching you stuff your face. The hungrier you are the more satisfying it is."

"Freak," he muttered between bites, and she chuckled softly, wary of waking Treias.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, listening to the jungle waking up. Finally Artan said, "He started slipping about this time yesterday."

"We need to get him out of here before it stops working. Assuming that even _stops_ it." Ashraf grimaced at the thought of dragging Treias out intact only to have him still going mad under whatever was pushing against his mind.

"It's our best chance." She reached out and the minion on banana duty handed her one. "Have you asked yourself why he called out for you instead of me, on the deck?"

Ashraf stopped mid-bite. "No," he said hesitantly. After swallowing he asked, "Why?" because this sounded like a test of some sort.

She shook her head, smiling. "You're blind as truth herself. I guess that's fitting.

"Don't start the cryptic crap with me. You know better." He shook his banana at her for emphasis, and she couldn't help a full-throated laugh this time.

Treias stirred, whimpering against some figment in his mind. Ashraf set the banana aside and drew closer, gently shook Treias awake. "Hey."

"Ashraf?" The sylvari blinked sleepily at him, hardly aware of his surroundings except that he was half in Ashraf's arms.

"Yeah."

Against the rising song he shuddered, pushed himself further into Ashraf's arms until it was a proper embrace, head against Ashraf's shoulder. "I'm scared," he whispered.

"It'll be okay." Ashraf settled a hand on the back of Treias' head, the other in the middle of his back. "We'll get you out of here."

Treias drifted off again almost immediately, and Ashraf shifted to take his weight more comfortably.

"That's what I mean," Artan said softly, nodding towards Treias. "You lay a hand on him and he stills. A soothing word and he calms. He's fighting for control of his own mind and you're the one he calls for, _not_ his captain."

"You _know_ why." They rarely spoke of it, but Artan was Elonian, too, and knew the secret fire Ashraf carried for what it was.

"I do." She regarded him keenly. "But I don't think _you_ do. Why do you think he's always seeking you out to show you whatever fiddly machine he's found? Why he all but _begged_ me to let him be the one to tell you about the ship?"

"He what?" Ashraf finally looked up from the soft glow between Treias' head leaves.

Artan gave him a knowing look. "If you can't piece it together from that, I'm not spelling it out for you."

For a long moment Ashraf was quiet, and the morning chorus filled the silence between them. "Why?"

With a snort Artan said, "Now _that's_ a real mystery." He glared at her, and she laughed.

"Why are you bringing this up now?" When she didn't answer right away he pressed, "Artan."

At length she said, with the same unnerving finality she'd spoken of the crew, "He deserves better than to take it to the grave."


	2. The Fall, 2

Around mid-afternoon they stumbled on some wreckage that had torn down part of one of the trees, and while the minions spread out to search for a way around Treias sorted through what the golem could get him to. After only a few minutes of sifting he gave a triumphant cry and held something up for the others to see.

Artan gave Ashraf a sidelong look, and he wracked his brain for what it might be, familiar as it seemed. "Uh… okay, you've got me here."

"It's an igniter," Treias said, as if it were painfully obvious. "There's enough stuff here to cobble together a flamethrower."

Artan and Ashraf exchanged another look while Treias continued gathering parts, one that spoke of a practical fear neither of them wanted to voice: the next time he slipped, would Treias have the presence of mind to toss it aside? _Could_ he? Ashraf could easily survive any onslaught so long as Treias didn't catch him off guard, but Artan might not. By silent agreement Artan stood watch, and Ashraf dropped to his knees beside Treias. "What can I do to help?"

Treias worked until he ran out of light, and then Ashraf called up guardian fire, cold blue flame licking up his arms and dancing across his fingers and giving them enough. So he worked until he couldn't any more, too weary, and Artan's minions brought them more scavenged fruit.

Early the next day he had it finished, configured a little differently so he could use it while being carried by the golem or sitting down. Treias didn't seem to notice the new tension between Artan and Ashraf, and they let it stand as it was, got moving again.

With the sun at its zenith Artan motioned everyone to stop, stood very still as if listening, then said, "They've found something." She pursed her lips. "Other survivors." She started off in a new direction, and the others trailed behind.

They came upon them near a larger stream, a small camp that looked a couple of days established, one of the smaller minions waiting patiently at the edge with a strongly built norn woman in Vigil armor and a large, sleek jungle cat. "I thought there must be someone nearby," she said, glancing down at the minion, "considering the dragon makes a very different use of flesh." She looked up at Treias in the flesh golem's arms, and her lips drew into a thin line. But she addressed Artan when she spoke again. "You don't look like Pact."

"Irregulars," Artan said. "What's left of the _Dwayna's Breath_."

"Pirates." She didn't make a face, but they _heard_ the distaste in her voice. "It's good to see something moving other than the plant life, regardless. You should talk to Warmaster Longstrider." She leaned in close to Artan, and murmured something.

Artan looked back to Treias, and neither he nor Ashraf needed to hear what the norn had said to know what had passed between them. "I'll be back."

As soon as they were out of earshot Ashraf exhaled heavily. "This isn't going to end well, is it?" Treias asked.

"No, and I know where it's going." Even with no one nearby the few people he saw in the camp kept an eye on them, and Ashraf's hand never left the pommel of his sword.

"If it's the difference between you two being safe or not, leave me. I'm too injured to be any use in a fight, and eventually–"

" _No_." The vehemence, the finality of it _floored_ Treias, and he shrank back a little. Ashraf looked up at him, glaring–and Treias caught sight of that faint glow again. "Just no. We didn't drag your ass this far to abandon you. Even if we have to fight a gods-damned dragon barehanded we're getting you out of here."

Treias looked down at the muzzle of the flamethrower, occupied himself by inspecting something Ashraf wouldn't know _wasn't_ out of place. They stayed like that for a long time, until the gaze of the Pact survivors grew heavy on them. He didn't see any sylvari among them.

He didn't need to ask what had happened to them.

When Artan left the tent she gestured to them. The golem trundled up, and from his seat in its arms Treias could barely see Ashraf walking next to him, carefully placing himself between Treias and the bulk of the camp. On them reaching her Artan leaned in close and quietly said, "We're staying with this group. They've got a beacon they're working on and they expect to have it up in two days. They've seen some smaller aircraft going overhead from the edge of the jungle, so they expect to get a response quickly." She pointed at Treias. "I told them you could help, and the Warmaster agreed."

Artan fell silent as a very tall, leggy charr in lightweight Vigil gear stepped out of the tent, and she considered the three of them carefully for just a moment, looking down her muzzle cautiously. "You're the engineer?" she said to Treias.

"Yes ma'am."

She gave a short huff, half a growl. "I'd give my tail to know why you're fine and my soldiers are at _best_ dead and at worst ravening off into the jungle, but we haven't the time. Come with me." She started off at a pace Treias might have trouble matching even hale–the golem, however, kept up fine.

Which left Artan and Ashraf alone. They watched in silence until the Warmaster and the golem ducked into another tent, then glanced around the camp to catch the wary stares of others.

"Someone needs to keep an eye on him," Artan said. "And not just to see when he starts to go again."

"We can't fight a whole Pact camp," Ashraf muttered, and he stepped up to stand aside her and look out over the camp from the same angle, one hand on his hip and the other on his sword.

"We might have to. But let's pray it takes them longer than two days to lose their minds." She clapped Ashraf on the shoulder. "Let's make ourselves useful until then."

They understood each other well enough by now that neither needed to say which they found more a threat between the dragon and the paranoia of normally reasonable people put into a desperate panic.

* * *

The camp had extra bed rolls considering how low their numbers were and how much they'd salvaged, and Treias fell asleep the moment he laid down, exhausted from days of fear and a full day of hard work. He'd helped, _really_ helped, and the crew working on the beacon had improved their estimate to dusk the next day for activation. It felt _good_ , and he felt he had the trust and gratitude of a large portion of the camp, and he felt _safe_. Almost as if he had the whole crew around him again, and the din of the jungle turned to the soft sounds of the ship as he drifted off.

He woke to _pressure_ , but not song, and a cool kiss of metal at his throat. He opened his eyes to darkness, and in the gentle light of his own glow the grim features of the norn who had met them at the edge of camp. She seemed a terror all her own in that light, and he opened his mouth, closed it when the blade at his throat bit down.

"You make a sound," she said, "and it happens anyway before anyone can reach you. Then I kill your friends. You're not far gone enough to want them dead, are you?" He didn't dare move or make a sound to confirm or deny her. "But it's coming. I know. It came for _all_ of them. Red and gold, they said. A brilliant song." The blade pulled back, and her voice hitched, but then steel bit again and this time Treias felt it draw sap. "They begged, some of them. _Kill us_ , they said. _Before it makes us kill you_. We did. It was mercy. Even the ones who didn't show any signs. It was mercy. _It's coming for you_." And _now_ he heard it, digging claws into the fear crawling up the back of his spine, riding on every rise and dip of her voice like a ship in a storm. He couldn't help it, made a strangled sound, torn between fear of her threat and fear of the song welling up inside him, fear of _what he'd do_.

"It's there, isn't it?" She smiled, something broken and far gone in her eyes. Then she leaned in close, shifted the blade up to set the point just beneath his jar, under his ear. "Sometimes," she whispered, "I can hear it too."

He sensed it in her, the way he could sense the emotions of other sylvari, the tiniest surge of red and gold, a niggling vine somewhere vital in her flesh–and then _blood_. Treias didn't cry out, still frozen by her threat, and when he blinked back the sudden spray of it recognized the knife tearing out through the front of her throat. Ashraf caught her weight before she fell, carefully rolled her body into the open spot where he'd been sleeping as she choked out around the gaping hole he'd torn in her throat. It was quiet, hardly more than a bubble and a gurgle, and while Treias had seen enough of this wet knife work it bothered him.

 _This_ , he thought, _is how it means to kill us. Not brute force or numbers, but fear._

"Did she hurt you?" Ashraf whispered. He settled his fingers on Treias' chin and turned his head aside, looking for the thin line of sap she'd drawn with her knife.

"No." He swallowed thickly. "But she meant to."

Ashraf nodded. "I heard." He looked aside at a sudden sound, perfectly still, then back. "I'll get Artan. We're leaving."

* * *

Artan barely asked about the blood on Ashraf's hands, splattered across Treias' neck and face, but she pulled a kerchief, miraculously unblemished, from one of her pockets for Treias. Ashraf didn't seem to care, almost wore the blood as a badge of pride–

No, Treias decided, because he washed it off the first time they found water. That was the song plying sweetly dark notes, more insidious than before, in the back of his head.

They wandered, each privately despairing at the loss of their best hope to get out of the jungle. Treias felt newly useless, still riding in the flesh golem's arms. He didn't say it _aloud_ , knew how they'd react, but he couldn't shake the feeling he'd already killed his comrades by association. By _being_. It was only a matter of time, now, before they were overwhelmed by dragon minions, or by Pact seeking vengeance.

They stopped at dusk to rest, weary after their hasty midnight flight from the camp. They took the shade of a huge strangler tree, the thinner roots spaced enough to climb between to a more sheltered inner area. The flesh golem proved too large to navigate, so it remained vigilant outside while Ashraf carried Treias in. Artan curled up in the cool dark and resumed her rudely interrupted sleep.

They sat in silence near the entrance for a while, Ashraf staring out and Treias almost afraid to look up at the jungle. He didn't feel right _thanking_ Ashraf for tearing out someone's throat to save him, though he'd seen worse, _done_ worse on some of their runs at sea. He wasn't even sure he felt _gratitude_. She'd been right, and it was only a matter of time now.

Ashraf started removing his greaves. "How long?"

"Hm?"

He paused, closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose, then opened his eyes and continued. "You know what I'm asking."

Suddenly Treias stilled, perfectly motionless and staring. "She told you." He spoke slowly, unsure the words would come out words.

"No," Ashraf said. He pulled off his boots, started going at some of the more restrictive parts of his armor. "She led me to understanding."

Treias tried to focus on _anything_ else, like the dull ache and the growing itch in his injured hip, or the utter silence of the jungle without a breeze. "Since the first time we slept together."

He heard Ashraf pause, the _lack_ of motion full of some strangely subdued surprise. Treias hunched his shoulders, laid out the flamethrower and pretended to be interested in it.

"That's a while," Ashraf said.

Treias nodded. "It is."

He heard Ashraf lay down in the cool shade next to him, so he finally turned back to look, saw the sword still within easy reach. Ashraf had folded his arms behind his head, and stared up at the tree around them. In the shade Treias fancied he still saw the faintest whisper of glow in Ashraf's eyes.

"I do care about you." Ashraf spoke quietly, voice soft and gentle and full of its own kind of sweetness that had nothing to do with lost human magic. "Probably not the way you want. But you're more than crew. You're more than a friend."

"Then what am I?" Treias drew the knee of his good leg up to his chest, wrapped one arm around it. He felt small, and his throat suddenly dry.

"I don't know," Ashraf said. "Do we have to figure it out now? Let's just… take it as it is. When we're not fighting our way out of here we'll figure it out." He pulled one arm from behind his head and held it out in invitation. Treias took it, carefully lowered himself down to pillow his head against Ashraf's shoulder, draped an arm over Ashraf's chest while Ashraf wrapped his own free arm around Treias.

It wasn't what he'd _wanted_ to hear, but it was better than he'd expected. He took the offered comfort, safe in the knowledge that so long as he remained in Ashraf's embrace he wouldn't fall farther.

* * *

They walked for days. One they went without water, because the little plants at the edges of the stream _sang_ in Treias' perception, tiny voices echoing distant song. Each day the breeze grew more still, the air between the trees stifling. Ashraf and Artan shed as much clothing as seemed safe, Artan tying up her coat into a sling for what they chose to go without. The heat mattered very little to Treias, save that the air seemed stale.

They heard small aircraft overhead, and determined the edge of the jungle from their flight patterns. With the heavy canopy they never saw them, had no hope of signaling one. Hope came instead in the fact that they flew at all.

They reached the shade of a massive cliff, greenery sprawling up the face–but the huge vines that had torn apart the fleet as well. After some discussion they agreed to follow the cliff, looking for an easy way up. Treias bit back the offer to remain behind since he'd be a burden getting up the cliff face, already knowing the answer.

And not wanting to hear it change if they grew desperate enough.

They passed a night in the shadow of the cliff, Treias no longer ashamed of clinging to Ashraf through the frightful hours before dawn when the distant music seemed loudest.

The next day the trees began to twist, tortured limbs heavy with moss that seemed to writhe if anyone drew too near, the leaves a panoply of colors filtering sunlight to cast stained glass patterns across the jungle floor. Hip-high sundews sprouted between the knees of black-and-green trees, blood red and the tips glittering wet. The great brambles arced out and in of the cliff face like whales breaching, broken stone from their violent expulsion spilled at the base. One or two still lazily chugged along, burrowing through stone with a dim churning and a vibration through the ground. Smaller briars jutted out at odd angles and bore corpses in armor of the Orders, spaced as though handing them down to one another at an inexorable crawl. Here at the edge of the jungle, the very outskirts of the dragon's domain they passed through a cathedral of its macabre glory.

And everything _sang_ , alive and aware, triumphant and sorrowful at the sylvari among the dead on the wall. They echoed distant song, made wordless praise, hymns of tone and tune that made no sense but _if he stared at the light against the ground long enough_ –

"Ashraf." Treias' voice came feeble, he hardly heard himself above the thrum of song and worried that they'd swallowed his voice somehow–but Ashraf stopped, turned, and waited the few seconds for the golem to catch up. He matched pace, reached out for Treias' hand and threaded their fingers together. A jolt of that light brought only silence now, not the more distant but more overwhelming chorus it had at first.

The sun reached zenith and they _baked_ in the steam of the jungle. Artan's minions even started to smell ripe despite the magic in them, but they continued dutifully scouting ahead, steering the group clear of danger. A cat wrapped in vines, the disconnected muscle and bone made motive by them in crude but effective puppetry, snatched one up. Artan steered them away from the cliff face for a while.

Perhaps an hour passed and they drew back close to the cliff face when Ashraf called out, "Artan." She stopped, turned back, and the golem stopped as well. The cathedral's lighting cast them all in maddening, eerie colors, but the glow in Ashraf's eyes as he held back the song from Treias' mind remained constant, cast his face in a calmer light. "We need to turn back."

"We'll lose days," she said. "And the clifftop is descending. There's more of a slope. We're getting _somewhere_."

"No," he said. "I mean _now_."

She stiffened, and tilted her head as though listening to something. Fear seized Treias, because she'd mentioned a run in with brambles–was she hearing the song as the norn at the camp had claimed to? She turned, looking up to the cliff face, again adorned with dead as if offerings to the dragon.

"They agree," she said.

She took a step and the ground erupted beneath her, brambles rocketing up to toss her. They grabbed her mid-air by one ankle. She twisted to lay hands on them, but as thorny flesh withered under her touch more came.

The golem dropped Treias and rushed the vines, grabbing at them as if to rip them out of the ground. Treias landed on his injured hip, lost his grip on the flamethrower and laid there dazed and in pain for a second. He looked up to see Ashraf hacking at the vines, guardian fire searing them to stumps that wiggled uselessly. But the vines kept pushing, hauling Artan up into the trees.

Treias dragged himself to the side, trying to find an angle where he wouldn't hit anyone with the flamethrower, but then the vines shredded through the golem like razorwire, twirled up through the chunks of meat and bone and thrashed them against the ground. He hauled up the muzzle of the flamethrower and let loose.

On the other side of the column of vines a smaller one lashed out at Ashraf, curling around his throat and pushing. He released the magic that had kept the vines from simply _tossing_ him with their blows, knowing it was move or _break his neck_. He hacked at the vine, but others braided up to strengthen it, shot up along the blade of his sword to trap his hand on the hilt. He pushed back with guardian fire, but for every vine that seared away two more lashed up and along to replace it. Finally he shouted, the light in his eyes and under his skin again, and the vines lit up with real fire.

Treias forced himself to his feet, made a weak gasp at the pain in his hip and stepped forward with a halting, half-falling gait. He feared what he'd get out of the ground here but he called up vines to reinforce his injured leg, made a sort of brace to try to bypass the joint but he didn't _dare_ look down, guided them by feel. They did the job but when they burrowed into the wound he knew he only had so much time. He limped forward, gait made strange and shambling like the Orrian dead, and kept up the pressure with the flamethrower. "You can't have them," he breathed, as if anyone would hear.

The vines finally pulled Artan up above the leaves, out of sight. Her minions came scampering out of the woods and up along the vines, which contracted and shuddered trying to dislodge them as they climbed up. Ashraf finally seemed to make headway against his, tearing free his sword and swinging it up alight with fire, as another vine thrust up from the ground and twisted up, drove its tip through his armor, through his stomach like a spear. His sword swing halted just long enough for the vine around his neck to braid runners up his shoulder, to catch his arm in place. Together the two vines lifted him off the ground, and he struggled but the vine around his throat only tightened, the one impaling him only pushed harder until it broke through and slowly began cracking through his armor on the other side. They pinned him to one of the trees at head-height.

Treias finally reached the column of vines as he felt the ones at his hip worrying their way through flesh, as song exploded through his head like his gunshot had exploded Bosun Espen's. He screamed, full of denial and despair, and shoved the muzzle of the flamethrower into viny flesh, jammed the trigger. He tore off the fuel tank, shoved it in among the vines as they began to merge with the ones he'd braced his hip with, the ones already inside began eating at his flesh and tore through the skin of his leg. He pulled out his gun before they could get to it, loaded it with shaking hands, tore off his bandolier of ammunition and wrapped it around the fuel tank–the vines blindly grabbed at it, swallowing all of it, swallowing _him_. He pressed the mouth of his gun to the tank.

He looked up one last time at Ashraf through the writhing vines, hanging limp against the tree, mouth open and vines crawling their way out as if trying to find the song inside him, the one that had chased them away so long. He pulled the trigger.

Beyond muzzle flash and before flame consumed him he saw Ashraf's eyes open, saw the vines holding him sublime as light seared through them, in the steam of the jungle the outline of golden, ethereal wings behind him. Ashraf lifted his sword as what remained of the vines curled away from the light spilling out of him.

Then the fuel tank exploded.


	3. Nadir

_nadir noun na·dir \ˈnā-ˌdir, ˈnā-dər\_

 _1 : the point of the celestial sphere that is directly opposite the zenith and vertically downward from the observer_

 _2 : the lowest point_

* * *

First came silence. It seemed important, a _thing_ all to itself rather than the absence of something. It felt light, an isostatic rebound of the soul.

Other sounds came: murmuring voices, soft humming, clips and snips and snaps of very small tools. They were different from the silence, could not interrupt the silence, because the silence was lasting and they were transient. Something seemed _wrong_ about the silence, that it was too complete.

Second came scent. Poultices, sap, sterile things. Old smoke. The delicate scent of a flower, green and growing things. Blood. Something familiar and comforting but unplaceable, soft musk and a little rum and something glittering.

Third came taste. Sap, an alarming lot of it. Water. The unpleasant tastes of medicines. Something poppy-based. Carbon. Ash.

Then touch. _Pain_. He pried his lips apart to gasp and regretted it, felt the sticky half-healed flesh tear apart. Humming stopped, shushed him, but he could not still. He couldn't move, either, save to arch his back perhaps an inch, no more. His limbs disobeyed, stayed heavy and useless, dead wood. Fingers, cloth, something cold and numbing.

Fingers, skin instead of plant matter, calloused. They found the only spot that didn't hurt. A soft, resonant murmur. _Safety_. He calmed.

Eventually he succumbed to the sedatives and slept a quiet, dreamless sleep.


End file.
